Leona’s Pizzeria has remained family owned since its inception in1950. Its success has led the family owners to launch Hop Haus, a new concept similar to a neighborhood sports bar.

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Leon Toia explains his grandmother, Leona Molinaro, was “the original liberated woman.” He describes her as “very strong, very buxom, very business-minded, very flamboyant and very successful” – all qualities that helped her business, Leona’s Pizzeria, get off the ground when it opened in 1950.

“My grandmother went into business with her brother Pat and they opened Pat’s Pizza in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood,” Toia says. “However, they were hot-blooded Italians, and within a day they were fighting. So, my grandmother left Pat’s and opened Leona’s Pizzeria one block away. Both businesses are still doing well after three generations in our family.”

In fact, Leona’s Pizzeria has expanded to 12 locations throughout Chicago and its suburbs, based on the success of its thin-crust pizza and full menu of salads, pastas, sandwiches and entrees – all of which are served in large portions. Toia explains it was his grandmother’s pioneering spirit that helped build interest in Leona’s menu at the beginning.

“No one had really heard of pizza, so my grandmother would deliver pizzas to the local taverns for their patrons,” he says. “Eventually, the delivery aspect of the business caught on, and Leona’s grew from there. This was the origin of food-delivery services in Chicago.”

Bolstered by the long-term success of Leona’s, two years ago Toia and his family launched a new concept – Hop Haus. He says Hop Haus provides a fun atmosphere like Leona’s, but instead of focusing on families, Hop Haus is more like a neighborhood sports bar. It features about 30 different beers and 26 burgers, some of which are made from game meats. Each location has multiple TVs and serves food until 4 a.m.

“Our first Hop Haus location is near a lot of nightlife, so we went after late-night clientele, as well as local residents,” Toia says. “It’s a fun concept and has been working well. Our second location is farther north in the city and has blended into the neighborhood well. It has had off-the-charts success.”

Recently, Food and Drink spoke with Toia about the company’s two concepts and how it maintains consistent service and menu quality across multiple locations.

Food and Drink: How do you ensure quality service at all locations?

Leon Toia: We have about 350 servers, and they are smart and fun-loving people. Additionally, we have about 400 people who work full time, as well as 60 managers. Because of the slow economy, most of our servers today are grossly overqualified. They are doctors, lawyers, out-of-work professionals – so being a server is a transition for them.

The average time a server spends with us is nine months, and we give them a nine-month career vs. a part-time job where they happen to be serving. We are honest with them about our business, and when they leave, we want them to leave with their head up. They are working among a lot of people where this is their full-time job. We don’t want our servers to undermine our full-time employees’ success.

We really focus on morale. Our industry is a little wounded right now, in that not a lot of people will define themselves as long-term members of this business. But we take a humanistic approach and work closely with all of our people to ensure they are happy. My brother goes store to store and finds out how people feel and how they are performing. He retrains them if necessary and talks with them to resolve any problems. We stress that everyone that works with us is very important – we don’t see our servers as disposable. As a result, for a mid-scale chain, we have the best service in town.

FAD: How do you strengthen the brand?

LT: This is one of my main focus areas. We work with the public schools through giveaways, and really do as much with the community as we can. That is a better way to show our focus on service because people are more receptive to a brand when it’s a part of the community.

Our brand has definitely had to evolve. Leona’s has always been a family concept, but we started by offering sandwiches and pizza, and now we focus more on salads and lasagna. When we try new things – our focus on lasagna has been a big success – we have to massage them to fit into the brand.

We’ve taken a different approach to marketing Hop Haus. The customers are younger – it tends to attract people between the ages of 23 to 43. This age group is much more focused on technology, so we’ve made sure Hop Haus has a lot of cyber exposure. It is a brand that is more accessible online, which has been great for us.

FAD: How do you develop the menu?

LT: Conceptually, it usually comes from the ownership. This is one of the fun parts of our business – our family gets together, we talk, laugh and things happen. This is when new ideas pop up. We also have an executive chef on staff that does R&D. The executive chef collaborates with about 12 people, and there is a constant focus on quality and execution.

We started developing the new lasagnas after thinking about spinach and artichoke dip. People love it, and it’s everywhere, but we got tired of seeing the same things on every menu. We decided to do a spinach and artichoke lasagna, and then came up with other lasagnas – one is modeled after macaroni and cheese, another has Italian meats. We took similar pasta dishes off our menu, and it’s working well. We’ve tripled our sales compared to the traditional pastas we used to have. All of our new lasagnas took a long time to create, but people really love them.

FAD: What consumer trends have you been responding to?

LT: There is a huge trend toward value right now because of the economy. That can be brutal, but there is no fight that we aren’t prepared to fight. We focus on dollar and service value – anything that a customer will associate with a positive experience.
In this current market, there has been a shake out of restaurants. Those that can’t deliver the value can’t compete. We are always trying to deliver value without going coupon-creepy. We want to lend credibility to our discounting.

It really is a consumer’s dream right now because there is a lot of value to be had. We are also improving value by focusing a lot on delivery. Some of our locations have as many as 20 delivery drivers because that is in such high demand right now.

FAD: What are your plans for growth?

LT: I can easily see us going forward. This is a family business, so we don’t represent public money. We will grow, we’re just going to take it slowly. We will focus a lot on Hop Haus, only the newer locations will be smaller. Right now, our two locations are 4,500 square feet. We’d like the new locations to be about 3,000 square feet. We will use existing sites – not build from the ground up – and our goal is to be like a neighborhood bar.

The average Leona’s location is 5,500 square feet, but we plan to open a couple Leona’s quick-service sites that will be about 1,200 square feet. These locations, called Leona’s Pronto, will focus on carryout and delivery, and will have fewer operating expenses than the regular Leona’s.

The fourth generation of our family is involved, so we are confident that this business will continue. We own all of our own real estate and are very conservative when it comes to spending. If we can grow by about 6 percent a year, we would be happy with that. Right now, our sales are down 2 to 3 percent, which isn’t bad compared to the overall industry. We are going to stay in business and grow, but we don’t plan to take over the industry and become a big monster. We are happy where we are right now.